Landing

Centrefuge

by Scott Hudson

If music could be heard across the plains of the Serengeti and the sounds possessed the ability to dictate the mood of tigers, you might the have following scenario. The music of Chicago would depict tigers at play, Pink Floyd when they’re on the hunt, Metallica when they make the kill, and Bread when they sleep. If that scenario holds true, then Landing’s Centrefuge EP would be the reason why some tigers tend to eat their young.

Landing is the vision of moog keyboardists Adrienne and Aaron Snow, who worked as a two-piece unit under the name May Landing. The May portion of their name was dropped when the two added Dick Baldwin (bass/guitar) and Daron Gardner (drums/bass), undoubtedly to share the blame…I mean to augment their lineup.

Centrefuge

(Music Fellowship)

Centrefuge is a 26 minute, five song instrumental EP that, as its press kit admits, is “almost entirely devoid of structure.” While the attempt is to make “pure, languid atmospheres of sound,” the result is a boring, frustrating, anti-climatic exercise in self-absorbed doodling. Landing’s music is centered around a faint, droning guitar that repeats the same pattern ad nauseum. But it’s the Snows’ delay-driven moog synthesizer riffs that attempt to throw globs of effects onto the music like Jackson Pollack threw paint onto a canvas. It ends up a failed nod to Brian Eno. Certainly Edgar Winter would be spinning in his grave, if he were dead.

If it’s mood music you’re after, go hunt down some pre-Dark Side Pink Floyd or, for that matter, Tangerine Dream. Centrefuge is an instrumental experiment gone completely awry. It presents a Mr. Hyde without the benefit of ever knowing that a Dr. Jeckyl ever existed.

Centrefuge, without question, can now assume its rightful place at the top—as the record most likely to make a bad acid trip worse, or make a near death experience seem like a nice break in the day.